District 13 Ultimatum

District 13 may be the ultimate rush3starsGo to showtimes

AMY BIANCOLLI, Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Thursday, March 4, 2010

You need to know two things, and two things only, heading into District 13 Ultimatum.

First: It has nothing to do with District 9, the Oscar-nominated sci-fi allegory about extraterrestrials in a South Africa. No big-schnozzed aliens in District 13. And no Johannesburg, either. This one's set in Paris.

Second: The stunts are real. As in, not faked. As in, when you see a guy leap between buildings or scale a wall or clamber over cars, garbage heaps, whatever, said guy is really and truly leaping between buildings or scaling walls or clambering over cars, garbage heaps or whatever. There aren't any wires or superheroic CGI helping him along — no high-priced wizardry morphing him into some sticky-fingered Spider-Hottie. What you see is what you get.

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Which is this: awesome, awesome action. Skimpy, skimpy plot. The mix of minimalist screenwriting and stunning parkour — the French-born art and sport of extreme urban scrambling — hasn't changed much since the first District 13, which posited a grim Parisian future where a huge and lawless slum is walled off from the cozy upper classes. In the original, a tenement resident and a decent cop work together to rescue a damsel in distress and prevent skid row's annihilation.

There's no damsel this time, but three years later, the threat of annihilation remains. So do the lead characters: slum rat Leïto (parkour founder David Belle) and chesty officer Damien (Cyril Raffaelli), who freewheel over concrete barriers and narrative obstacles involving gangland unrest, a high-level conspiracy and a spineless, hand-wringing French president (Philippe Torreton). The class-warfare preachifying isn't exactly subtle; neither are the swipes at corporate behemoth Halliburton (excuse me, “Harriburton”). The ending alone is a steaming pile of huh?

That said, no one paying to see District 13 Ultimatum cares much about the plot. The only reason to watch it, and yes, it's a perfectly valid reason, is to revel in its many long scenes of running, climbing, jumping, kickboxing, more running, more kickboxing and an overall sense of small, muscular men sweating in unison.

Despite the grunginess of their look — and the Kung Fu-iness of their combat moves — Leïto and Damien pause now and again to discuss constitutional law, just a little chitchat between explosive bouts of action. The pair's raw gymnasticism invites comparison with old-school martial arts, but there's an added kinship, however distant, with the work of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. If you doubt this, rent 1920's The Mark of Zorro and tell me he wasn't practicing an early form of parkour.

All tight-corner cinematography and rapid edits, District 13 Ultimatum was directed by Patrick Alessandrin from a screenplay by producer Luc Besson (who also co-wrote and co-produced From Paris With Love). It moves as fast as its heroes. They're in constant flight, a muddle of hapless villains trailing like Wile E. Coyote, proof that a film can go far on bare-handed chase scenes alone. No need for CGI when you've got sweet moves, fast feet and a bottomless hoard of adrenaline.